The Hamiltonian constraint in the symmetric teleparallel equivalent of general relativity

Abstract: General relativity (GR) admits two alternative formulations with the same dynamics attributing the gravitational phenomena to torsion or nonmetricity of the manifold's connection. They lead, respectively, to the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity (TEGR) and the symmetric teleparallel equivalent of general relativity (STEGR). In this work, we focus on STEGR and present its differences with the conventional, curvature-based GR. We exhibit the 3+1 decomposition of the STEGR Lagrangian in the coincident gauge and present the Hamiltonian, and the Hamiltonian and momenta constraints. For a particular case of spherical symmetry, we explicitly show the differences in the Hamiltonian between GR and STEGR, one of the few genuinely different features of both formulations of gravity, and the repercussions it might encompass to numerical relativity.